Whatever Doesn't Kill You
by Ergott
Summary: "The scars were terrible, Harley, and I mean no disrespect to you by saying it, but when we saw them we all knew he'd come for revenge that night, come looking for a way to call in the debt he thought you were owed." JxH, Circus themed origin story.
1. Chapter 1

Summary: "The scars were terrible, Harley, and I mean no disrespect to you by saying it, but when we saw them we all knew he'd come for revenge that night, come looking for a way to call in the debt he thought you were owed." JxH, Circus themed origin story.

Rating: M for violence, bloodshed, multiple murders, and swearing.

Quick Notes: Just to preemptively clear up some confusion, this story takes place shortly after the events of The Dark Knight. Also, it falls within the murky lines of an AU. (I say murky only because it's a little hard to make such distinctions when The Dark Knight: 1. Didn't give The Joker a past, and 2. Didn't introduce Harley Quinn as a character.) Yes, the circus thing is clichéd, but I'd like to have my turn anyway; sometimes clichés can be fun. (Also, I don't jive with the ever popular "Red Hood meets a vat of chemicals" origin stories, which I don't think would have been feasible in the Nolan-verse anyway, so this was my stab at eliminating that step from the equation.)

This story touches on a lot of sensitive issues like mental health, discrimination in the workplace, addiction, and murder. If you are bothered by these subjects, then this might not be the story for you.

For those of you who have read my previous Dark Knight stories, you know I like to favor a Joker-mash up between Mark Hamill's voice acting and Heath Ledger's performance. For this story, however, I tried to stay more within The Dark Knight characterization—this is, after all, an origin story.

**

* * *

Whatever Doesn't Kill You**

Part One

"My darling Miria, I could not love you more than I do this very moment," a sandy haired man murmured, gazing down in adoration at the blonde woman in his arms.

The woman wilted in despair, breaking away from her lover. "My father will never allow us to be together, Isaac!"

He puffed up, dramatically saying, "Then let's run away together!"

"They'd find us, my love," she whispered sadly.

"Oh, for the love of god," Harleen groused at the Shakespearean-inspired melodrama unfolding on her television, "just kill yourselves already! At least that would put the audience out of its misery."

"Then I suppose we were doomed to fail from the very start," the man wailed.

"You think you've got it bad?" Harleen asked the screen. "Who's got it worse: the dopey couple stuck in a tragic love, or the people stuck on the other side of the television who have to watch the tragedy?" She huffed, bouncing on her threadbare sofa. "Do you have any idea how depressing it is to realize you've got nothing better to do with your life than sit around watching cheesy soaps?"

It was really time that she faced the facts: if she was arguing with her television, her life wasn't depressing, it was in shambles. Not long ago, she had been Harley Quinn: Acrobat Extraordinaire, a bright and promising talent at the Gotham City Circus, but now she was just Harleen Quinzel, a scared and scarred woman who was hiding from the world. Her life had gone from a brilliant Technicolor production to drab gray monotony in the blink of an eye.

Well, no, that wasn't entirely true. She was away from the flash and sparkle of the circus, but there was still one small part of her life that throbbed a violent red. Whenever she saw The Joker's twisted smile stretch across her television screen, the gray haze of her daily existence seemed to fade away, replaced by tenderness and pain and so many other conflicting emotions. The problem was that she knew him; not in the sense that other Gothamites knew The Joker, but that she _knew_ him—knew his favorite foods, his favorite movies, knew his name. And guilt burned at her for it; she wanted to hate him the same way everyone else did, she wanted to see him as a monster, but every time she saw his face she could still see the man that he had been. Her sweet Jack Napier—coworker and friend—was on a psychotic rampage and she couldn't help but wonder if it was her fault.

More than once she'd tried to approach the police with information—The Joker hadn't sprung up out of nowhere, and maybe he would be easier to catch if they knew that—but The Incident hung heavy on her mind. She'd already lead to Jack's downfall once, she couldn't do it again. And she wasn't the only one keeping her silence; as far as she knew, no one from the circus had stepped forward. Maybe they all felt guilty. In some ways, she knew that they had all tried to pick their lives back up after The Incident, but were waiting for Jack to show up one night, ready to collect the debts he felt were owed to him.

And that was the problem, wasn't it? She owed Jack more than anyone, but did she owe him blood or…?

Her eyes darted to the low coffee table in front of her couch. There was a small package lying on the worn surface; it was flat, thin, and completely unopened. She'd nearly cried when she had noticed that it was addressed in Jack's writing—it was like seeing a ghost before her very eyes—and she'd thrown it onto the table in a fit of nerves. It had remain there ever since, mocking her weakness, tempting her to look inside. Nearly a year had drudged by since she'd last heard from Jack, since _anyone_ had heard from _Jack_, and the package beckoned her like a lighthouse to a storm-tossed ship.

Her fingers closed around the box, playing with the edges of the tape. She worried about the contents—who wouldn't after everything that had been in the news?—but, after two weeks of wondering, her curiosity finally won out. The tape came off in one quick pull, the flaps of the box springing open to reveal a book.

A book? She'd spent two weeks worrying that he'd sent her a bomb or a severed limb, and it had been a book the whole time? It was so anticlimactic that Harleen almost forgot to be relieved it hadn't been anything terrible.

A brown, leather-bound journal nestled on a bed of brightly colored paper, the scent of greasepaint and machine oil clinging heavily to the cover. It was the scent of the circus, the scent of Jack, and suddenly Harleen felt like she was back under the blinding lights, performing one gravity-defying trick after another, like she was cruising on that familiar adrenaline high. Like she wasn't damaged. It was strange how something so insignificant as a smell could take her back through time, pull her away from weeks and months of hopelessness and bring her back to a time when the world had been at her fingertips.

Carefully, she picked up the journal, so lost in her own thoughts that she almost didn't notice the note that had hidden beneath it. 'I'm dead,' it began without preamble. Harleen frowned. Jack had never been particularly tactful, but that was just a downright strange way to start a letter, not to mention untrue. She'd seen another one of his horrible videos on the news that morning, hadn't she? He couldn't be dead if he was still threatening the city at large. With that thought in mind, she continued to read. 'I can't imagine this falling into your hands for any other reason, so it must be true. You were the one who convinced me to write this journal in the first place, so it's only fitting that you should get to read it once I'm gone.' An inkblot marred the page, creating a tangible pause and, when the writing continued once more, it was different, sloppier and erratic. 'You're probably sitting in that broken-down apartment of yours, wondering what happened. Allow me to fill in the blanks. Our story begins, as these stories often do, with an innocent piece of advice.'

Harleen set the note to the side, gingerly picked up the journal, and settled onto her couch for a long read.

**

* * *

Diaries** are peculiarly feminine, so when a friend, who happens to be a woman, suggests that you start to keep a diary, it is simultaneously an affront to your masculinity, and endearing because she doesn't know any better. "Fine, a journal then," she suggested, as though there were any difference. "You can pretend it's a captain's log, or something equally manly."

I was inclined to keep arguing against it—pouring out my thoughts and feelings to a book seems a little too 'I'm a twelve year old' for me—but she had a point: I needed some outlet for my stress and, trust me, I've been under a lot of stress lately. And most of it, ironically, is because of her.

By now you're probably wondering who 'she' is—although maybe not, because you're an inanimate object. (That's another problem I have with this whole business: when I say 'you' just who the hell am I talking to?) Anyway, 'she' is Harley Quinn, the whipcord Queen of the Spanish Web. I've never seen an acrobat quite like her: lean and pretty and talented. She can flip a trick that would make Olympic gymnasts green with envy. She's also a coworker and my best friend, which makes things pretty awkward because—let's face it—I love her. Most people wouldn't consider that a bad thing—romantic interests are healthy, after all—but loving Harley is a painful affair. The problem is, to her I'm Just Jack: the guy she spends all her time with, but might as well be her brother for all the sexual interest she expresses in me. I've made the classic mistake of getting to know a woman too well before expressing interest, and now we're stuck firmly in the 'good friends' phase. And why not—it's fitting really. After all, what would a blonde sweetheart like her see in a sarcastic, cynical average Joe?

How quickly I devolve into a twelve year old! Less than a page into this venture and I'm already spinning a tale of tragedy. Let's start this over, and do it properly this time.

When I say 'you' I suppose I am writing to the spirit of the journal, but that still doesn't sit well with me. I'm not writing to myself, because I already know my problems, and I don't like the idea of pouring out my thoughts and feeling to some unwitting recipient that I will never confront. So, I suppose, in the face of three options I do not care for, I will combine them into one, unfitting solution: I will write to myself, to an ambiguous 'you', and to specific people, however the mood strikes me.

I can't imagine that this endeavor will last particularly long; I'll grow bored with it sooner or later, Harley will stop asking about the journal eventually, and the whole project will fall by the wayside. But, in a show of good faith, I'll start this book in the tried-and-true method of self-introduction.

My name is Jack Napier and—I'm rolling my eyes as I write this—I'm a Jack-Of-All-Trades at the Gotham City Circus. Mostly, I juggle in the side rings, but I also perform card tricks before the show, and I have a knife-throwing act with Harley. I've become know as the Casual Clown among some of the other performers because, even though I wear the face paint, I've never been part of the clown routines; my talents have always clearly laid with juggling and tricks of the hand rather than in bad jokes and pratfalls.

I don't care to remember much of life before the circus, to be honest. An intelligent boy from a troubled family, I originally joined the circus as a way of putting myself through college. I was seventeen that first summer, and they paid me under the table for a full time job as a janitor. Being a custodian wasn't the greatest job I'd ever held down—although it was certainly the messiest—but I got to see the shows for free, and that was definitely more than any other job had offered me. It wasn't until I returned the next summer, after a brutally unsuccessful year at the State University, that I was discovered as performance material. As a little boy, I had taken up juggling and sleight of hand tricks as a way of coping with stress—there's something indescribably relaxing about a difficult trick pulled off just right—and I had honed those skills over my disastrous year at University. I shudder to think what might have happened if management hadn't caught me doing card tricks for a couple of kids during one of my breaks.

My career evolved slowly after that: I started out as a wandering entertainer, someone who would perform a short routine for people who were waiting in lines, then I became a side ring performer, part of the show but not a focus. I rather liked the inattention, to be honest; I could get away with a lot more than the show-stopping performers, and I wasn't under nearly as much stress.

Until the knife throwing act.

Knife throwing is always a risky business because, no matter how many times you practice, there's always the chance that you might miss. And when missing means stabbing a coworker, the pressure to make the act perfect is pretty extreme.

I was opposed to the act from the very beginning; too many things could go wrong when performing with knives, and I liked my gray zone in the side ring. Becoming a center ring act was outside my comfort zone, especially when I saw who they wanted me to work with. She was a new performer, a sweet little thing with blonde curls and wide blue eyes, no older than nineteen and painfully shy. I'd seen her around a few times before, and she had always called to mind a lost and lonely waif.

"I'm Harleen," she introduced herself in a smoky, tender voice, peering up at me with hesitant eyes, and I felt my heart go out to her in that moment. "This is my first job here," she bit her lip nervously, but quickly stopped and offered a shy smile. "I hope we work well together."

Poor kid, I thought, she hadn't even cut her teeth in the business and they were already throwing her into dangerous acts with people she didn't know. "We'll work hard," I promised, "and start off slow. In time, we'll have them eating straight out of our hands, you'll see."

She smiled again, a flash of white teeth and glittering blue eyes, and I think, maybe, that I lost a part of myself to her that day.

* * *

Harleen stared at the end of the entry in wonder. She had known, especially toward the end, that Jack had been interested in an intimate relationship and, if she hadn't been such a coward, she would have returned those sentiments. But she _had_ been a coward, and their relationship had suffered for it.

There were a lot of things, though, she'd just learned about Jack that she hadn't known before. She hadn't known how or when he had come to work for the circus, and she also hadn't known that Jack had tried to go to University—he'd been in his early to mid twenties when she'd met him, and he had obviously already closed that chapter of his life by the time they'd been acquainted. It was strange to think that she had been friends with him for years—silently lusting after him for nearly as long—and yet hadn't really known anything about his life aside from the time they had shared together.

The phone rang, startling her out of her thoughts. A moment passed, then two as she debated whether to answer it or not; it was probably just another 'friend' who had decided to take pity on her. She let the call go to the answering machine; if it was important, they'd leave a message.

Reality was a rude slap in the face, she decided as she turned back to the journal. She'd known Jack better than anyone, and yet it now seemed as though she'd hadn't known him nearly as well as she'd thought.

**

* * *

She** was nervous at first, and who could blame her? I certainly wouldn't have trusted someone I barely knew to throw a knife at me and miss. She was prone to flinching in those early days, which was hell on me because I could never predict which way she would jerk.

"How do you keep such a steady hand," she asked after practice once, "when you don't know where the knife is going to end up once it leaves you?"

"That's _exactly_ how I stay steady," I replied. "I have no control over that knife once it's in the air; I can't make it dip or turn with my thoughts, so I have to exert all of my control in that one moment of release. If I can control it then, I'll know where it's headed, and if it's likely to hit you on the way there."

"I'm sorry I can't keep still," she apologized lowly. "I mean to, but then I see the blade sailing toward me, and…" She shrugged helplessly.

"It's human nature," I soothed, "you just need to learn how to master it." Which I didn't see happening any time soon. Harleen was timid beyond compare; I'd rarely seen her talk to anyone without lowering her eyes submissively, she was constantly apologizing for things that were not her fault, and she seemed to keep primarily to herself when she wasn't in practice with me or a few of the tumblers.

She frowned, a miserable look shadowing her eyes. "It isn't that I don't trust you," she said pointedly.

An idea struck me then, horrible and dangerous, but if it worked then it would be a huge step in the right direction for our performance. "_Do_ you trust me?" I asked pointblank.

She paused, her frown deepening. "Yes," she answered slowly.

"Explicitly?" I challenged.

Suspicion entered her eyes, but she nodded.

It was a sick idea, but the only way to control her response was to control her perception. She couldn't jerk away if she had no idea the knife was coming. I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket, folding it in half as I slowly approached her. "I'm going to blindfold you," I explained gently, suddenly feeling like I was working with a frightened animal instead of a young woman.

Her eyes widened in panic, but she never pulled away as I tied the ends of the cloth behind her head. "I trust you," she repeated, although I wasn't sure who she was trying to convince of that fact anymore. When I finished, she stood still as a statue, a fine tremor shaking her hands as she visibly started to sweat.

I retook my position across the practice area—a tall wooden board stood ten to fifteen feet away, her rigid body right in front of it—and waited for a moment, taking in the situation. It was cruel, but I would be a liar if I said I didn't enjoy it; the poor girl had no idea when or where the knife would hit and, without the benefit of sight, jerking out of the performance field could very well be deadly. I was forcing her to trust me, to do the trick right so that we could move on. In that moment I held absolute power: my hand alone would decide the outcome of this stunt. For a few brief seconds, chaos danced before me like a drunken illusion, and it was the sweetest pleasure I had ever known.

I threw the knife.

Later that night, when I couldn't get the look on her face out of my mind—her eyes wide and watering as she whipped the blindfold off and stared at the still-quivering blade that had imbedded itself in the wall, a scant two inches from her ear—I would try to drink it away. It wouldn't work; the memory of her shock and horror, and my momentary delight in her uncertainty, haunts me to this very day.

**

* * *

We** started to call it The Fear, although for vastly different reasons. Harleen was eternally afraid that I would hit her, though she never flinched away from a knife again after the incident with the blindfold. For my part, I was always worried that the sick pleasure would return, that I would get drunk on the moment and forget to be careful with her life. That one moment had changed the both of us, suffused us with The Fear, but the sensory deprivation had had the desired effect; after that, Harleen faced the knife with a bravery I hadn't even witnessed in the animal handlers. She threw herself into the routine from that moment forward, urging the both of us to practice more dangerous stunts as we got a better feel for how our act should generally be performed.

"A couple of almost-hits, that's all I'm asking for!" she pleaded during practice, her body completely motionless, save for her mouth.

I raised an eyebrow disbelievingly. "I can't help but feel that this is a desperate cry for help."

She looked like she wanted to stomp her foot at my stubbornness. "I'm not suicidal," she snapped. "If we got our timing down just right, you could throw a knife that looks like it will hit me, and I'll duck out of the way."

"No," I shook my head, approaching her so that I could pull the spent knives from the wall. "Our timing could be off, my aim could be wrong, you could dodge in the wrong direction… there are too many factors at work here."

"Lighten up, Jack," she frowned. "We can do this, I know we can! And it would be a crowd pleaser, too. There's nothing interesting about a man who's perfect."

"And there's nothing entertaining about an eager assistant accidentally getting stabbed in the middle of a performance," I returned seriously.

This time she did stomp her foot. "I know you can hit closer than you have been," she pointed to a knife that had landed nearly a foot from her shoulder. "When you blindfolded me, the knife you threw was only this far from my face," she held up two fingers, an inch or so of space between them, "but you didn't hit me. Your aim is phenomenal. All you have to do is land the blade a little closer, I jerk in the appropriate direction, and the audience will think they've seen someone escape death."

I sighed heavily. "I'm more worried that they won't see someone escape death."

"If we script the entire act out, it's all just a matter of memorization and timing," Harleen pushed.

"I have been uncomfortable with this act since the moment it was proposed," I admitted lowly. "So long as we're using real knives, it's too inherently dangerous. And now you want me to make it _even more_ dangerous?" At the back of my mind The Fear bubbled. How was I supposed to take her life into my hands and not succumb to that twisted euphoria I had experienced the last time? "I refuse."

She won in the end, though. When our knife act debuted, it was to a shaky start, and it wasn't until Harleen went to the managers with her idea of near-hits that our performance gained any sort of attention. In the early days, when I was first forced to do the more dangerous act, I thought of quitting, of going completely back to the side ring. The Fear ate away at me, leaving me a mess before and after every performance, but Harleen was so confident, so unwittingly brave about the whole thing that I found I couldn't step away.

**

* * *

I** showed up to practice, like usual—we practiced everyday in an empty field just outside the circus proper; it had probably been used for archery competitions, way back when—but the moment I arrived I could tell something was off. Harleen was sitting in front of the board wall, a lumpy duffel beside her. Panic struck at me; people left the circus all the time once they realized that it wasn't a fast track to stardom, and the thought of her leaving tightened my chest. Though we rarely saw each other outside of performances and practice, I had grown to treasure her reluctant smile; I valued her company highly, and the small moments we shared together were precious to me. Life at the circus was unpredictable, with people constantly coming and going, but in a few short weeks I had come to expect her presence.

She looked up at my approach, and what I saw glittering in her eyes wasn't the usual bitter sadness that burned at the performers who left the business. No, her eyes were determined. "You have a drinking problem," she said by way of greeting.

I stopped short, surprised. "I have never showed up drunk to a practice or a performance," I said carefully.

"That's true," she agreed, "but you seem to spend the rest of your time at the bottom of a bottle."

"I have a few drinks to unwind after the shows," I shrugged uneasily. "It's no big deal."

Her eyebrows nearly shot up to her hairline. "A _few_ drinks?" she asked disbelievingly, opening the duffel by her side. "You call _this_ a few drinks, Jack?"

Bottles of every shape, size, and brand laid in her bag, each one a guilty weight on my conscience. "Where did you find those?"

"There was a veritable liquor graveyard building up behind your trailer," she replied quietly. "Did you really think that no one would notice?"

No one _had_ noticed. I'd struggled with the bottle before, and it had only gotten worse as The Fear plagued me, but most performers had their little vices on the side and left each to their own.

"You're going to drink yourself into the grave," she said seriously.

This was so far outside my comfort zone, so far outside my normal interaction with Harleen, that I wasn't sure how to respond at first. Slowly, I replied, "Everyone needs a crutch once in a while."

She frowned and kicked the bag away, ignoring the tinkle and shatter of breaking glass as she stood. "I don't know what you're running from," she murmured, drawing close, "but I do know that sometimes it's easier to face your fears." Her small hand pressed against my shoulder, a little gesture of comfort. "_You_ taught me that, when you blindfolded me. Will you let me return the favor?"

And from that moment forward, she tried her damnedest to be my crutch. It was beyond annoying at first, despite the fact that I held a fondness for her. She was like a shadow, always one step behind me, no matter where I went.

"I don't understand what the appeal is," she said one day, after she had infiltrated my trailer to dig out and dispose of any liquor she could find.

"It's hard to explain," I replied, bemusedly watching her snoop through my dresser; somehow Harleen had gone from a timid little mouse, to a hellcat with no shame. "You have _this_ and _that_ grinding away at you, chipping off pieces bit by bit, and alcohol…" I shrugged. "Alcohol is a lubricant. It doesn't get rid of the problems, but it lets them run smoothly by you for a while."

She made a face as she pulled out a lime green tie. "You have the weirdest sense of fashion."

"You can get away with anything when you're a clown," I laughed.

"Anyway," she returned to the original topic of conversation, "I don't see what could possibly be so horrible that you can't talk your problems out with someone instead of soaking your heels in whiskey."

"Alright," I returned easily, leaning back in my chair as I continued to watch her poke around my stuff, "you show me your scars, and I'll show you mine."

"What?" she stopped, turning around to face me.

"Why are you here?" I asked bluntly. "Why did Harleen Quinzel run away to join the circus?"

She gave a surprisingly bitter laugh as she sat down in front of the dresser, idly playing with the bright tie she still held. "This wasn't my idea," she explained slowly. "I was planning to move in with a friend and get a nice, boring job somewhere."

"But?" I urged, genuinely interested.

She hunched her shoulders a bit, seeming to fall into herself. "Have you met Mr. Charmich?"

"I should hope so," I replied lightly. "He is one of the managers, after all."

"He's my uncle," Harleen grumbled. "He said it would be nice to have some family around, and my parents thought the experience would be good for me. So… here I am." She shrugged, not meeting my eyes.

I studied her for a moment, cocking my head to the side. "You're old enough to make you own decisions, to live on your own—if you didn't want to work here, why did you listen to you parents?"

She frowned, finally looking up at me. "Because they're my parents," she responded, as though that fact alone somehow answered everything. "What else was I supposed to do?"

It was my turn to shrug, "Told them how you felt."

A curious gleam entered her eyes, but she shook her head and murmured, "They were too pleased with the arrangement; I couldn't be the one who ruined that."

"At the expense of your own happiness?" I asked seriously. "Don't let other people live your life for you, Harleen, or you'll find yourself quite bitter in the end. And anyway, what makes them think this environment," I waved my hands in an encompassing gesture, trying to take in the whole of the circus, "would be so great for you?"

"I don't know," she said, looking away, the gleam in her eyes dying. It was a lie, there was more there, more than I could guess, but she didn't want to share it.

"It's The Fear," I stated suddenly, before she could fully turn away from me.

"What?" she asked, a frown marring her brow.

"You asked me what was so horrible in my life that I would resort to drinking." I shrugged nonchalantly, "It's The Fear."

She looked stricken for a moment. "I know you said you thought our act was too dangerous, but surely that alone wouldn't drive you to drink so much."

I straightened in my seat, silent for a moment. "I don't think you realize the magnitude of my responsibility here. Every night we perform, every day we practice, your life is in my keeping. A lethal weapon is put in my hands and I'm supposed to throw it at you close enough to get a gasp out of the audience, knowing that even the slightest tremor on my part could mean serious injury for you. There's no room for mistakes; it's an unforgiving act. That's enough to make any man drink." That wasn't the whole of it, although I did often worry that I would hurt her. No, the real reason I was drowning my free time in alcohol was because I enjoyed that moment of uncertainty where her life hung in the balance.

It was in that moment that I realized how well we suited each other: we were both trying to reach out to one another, and yet we were secretive about our own problems. There was something odd about seeing another person in pain—it could elicit any number of responses, and it always resulted in action. We had discovered kindred spirits in one another and, just as Harleen had resolved to become my crutch, that afternoon I resolved to become hers.

**

* * *

Two** days later, Harleen reinforced my decision so firmly that I don't think I could have left her alone anymore, even if I'd wanted to.

After discovering my alcoholic binges, Harleen had taken to meeting me after every performance. Her intuition on this was infallible—I couldn't bring myself to drink in her presence, not when I was so terrified that I might drunkenly reveal what The Fear really was for me. She already monopolized most of my days, and now that she was searching me out after shows, I barely had time enough to work on my juggling, let alone lift a couple of bottles to my lips. It was strange how someone so seemingly disconnected from everyone else around her was so keenly insightful when it came to me. I wanted to hate her for it—after all, the less time I spent thinking about my sadistic predilections, the better—but I couldn't. She was too endearing, too naively hopeful to be angry at, and I sensed a disquiet in her that I could not ignore.

Which is why, two days after our powwow in my trailer, I was worried when she didn't seek me out after the performance. She had been everywhere in my life lately, and to so abruptly feel her absence then was unsettling—like stumbling around blindly in what should have been familiar territory. With a curiously tight chest, I set out to find her, alcohol far from my mind.

It was night already; small lights cast strange colors throughout the circus grounds as patrons slowly poured out from the show. A cacophony of voices pulsed at me from every direction—shouts and cries and tuneless melodies—but I still managed to pick out her laugh. It was clear, velvety, and full of a painfully honest joy. My worry easing, I ducked behind one of the outbuildings, knowing Harleen couldn't be far.

And that was when I caught my quiet assistant doing back flips for a lonely child. At first, I didn't understand what I was seeing—I couldn't connect Harleen to this carefree and limber creature before me—but, slowly, it began to filter through. The blonde haired woman twisted and flipped, her body working in ways that most people could never hope to emulate. I had known that she worked with the tumblers and the acrobats on occasion, but I hadn't realized at how basely talented she was; her muscles rippled and she moved with the exact precision of someone long experienced—this was not something she had learned in the short time she'd been at the circus. And it made sense because she was happy, truly happy; I knew, without a doubt, that this had something to do with the dark shadows I'd seen lurking in her eyes, this had something to do with the reason she was here.

Harleen landed perfectly, and took a bow to the wildly clapping child, then she looked in my direction. Her smile vanished as soon as she caught sight of me, a guilty look dimming her eyes. I hated that reaction, hated it so completely that it surprised me. But, then again, I had promised to become her crutch, hadn't I? I needed to know these things if I was ever to help her like she was trying to help me.

Several awkward moments passed between us as we both watched the child meander off to find his parents. She made no move to approach me, her eyes guilty and averted, so I decided to break the ice. Maybe, if I shared a little of myself and my own problems, she would feel compelled to do the same.

"My parents truly hated each other," I told her abruptly, coming to stand beside her. "Of course, it didn't start out that way; they fell madly in love, got married, and had me within a year. Some of my earliest memories are of them holding hands and whispering to each other in that special way lovers have. For those few years, I don't think anyone loved deeper than they did," I reminisced, but my voice was already tinged with the darkness that laid ahead. "It didn't last; maybe passion like that can't—maybe it has no choice but to burn itself out eventually. All I know is that one morning things were _different_—there was anger and yelling, and that became a permanent part of our lives. From that day onward, love was just a memory."

She looked simultaneously relieved that I wasn't pursuing what I'd just witnessed, and troubled at what I had chosen to talk about instead. "That must have been hard on you," she replied sympathetically.

I shrugged uneasily. No matter how much time went by, I still hated to talk about that particular chapter of my life. "It's one of the reasons I learned to juggle and do card tricks; I needed something I could become engrossed in, something that would block out the bitterness and the raised voices."

"What was the other reason?" she asked—Harleen was quick, and she knew enough about me to know that my concern hadn't been entirely about myself.

"My brother," I answered, then sighed. These memories still hurt, but I was committed to sharing them now. "See, I was already thirteen by the time my parents came to hate one another, so it hurt, but I was old enough to face the reality of what was happening to our family. Bret, on the other hand, was only seven; he couldn't figure out why mommy and daddy were yelling at each other, and it scared him," I shook my head, already seeing Bret's frightened eyes in my mind. They had gotten to me every time, and they haunted me still. "Every time they started in on one another, he would turn to me, tears in his eyes, and I knew I had to do something to take his mind off of it. At first, I'd just take him out of the house; we'd go to the park or visit a friend, anything to get away from our parents. But they haunted us, even when we weren't near them; Bret became quiet and fretful—we both did, really—and I knew that just distancing ourselves from the problem wasn't enough, we had to separate our minds from the issue as well. That's when I started juggling. I was terrible at it in those early days, but my fumbling amused Bret to no end so that was alright and, when I finally started to get somewhat decent, he was kind enough to be awed."

She took my hand and began to lead the both of us to our practice area. "And the card tricks?"

"A young kid can only be distracted by the same routine for so long.," I shrugged. "When juggling started to lose his attention, I turned to sleight of hand—Bret had always been amazed at the magicians on television, so I knew it would keep him entertained."

She smiled, letting go of me as she settled down against the board where we spent most of our time. "Did he laugh when you practiced that, too?"

"Ah," I waggled a finger, "you see, the thing about magic tricks is they're only magic if you don't know how they work. I couldn't practice in front of my brother if I wanted him to pay more attention to the trick than our parents. For a while, I think I spent more time secretly learning card tricks than doing my homework or sleeping, but it was worth it in the end and I found I had an affinity for the cards. I guess I should thank my parents for that much, at least."

"Did you hate them?" she wondered, her eyes sad. Harleen's empathy never ceased to amaze me.

"Eventually," I nodded, sitting down a few feet in front of her. "At first I was just scared and sad, like my brother, but I began to resent them as time went by, until I was just as angry at them as they were at each other. And then, when they finally divorced and I thought the nightmare was over, they separated my brother and me. My mother took custody of Bret and moved halfway across the country, while my father took custody of me and stayed here in Gotham. I hated them for that more than anything else. Wasn't it bad enough that they had tainted our home with so much negativity and doubt; did they have to take away the one thing that had been constant through all that time? Bret was a touchstone for me; no matter how bad things got, I knew that he would always be there, ready to watch the newest trick I had mastered. And they took him from me, gone in the blink of an eye; of course, we still saw each other after that, on holidays and vacations, but we inevitably grew up and apart."

A heavy silence fell over us. For my part, I was trying to suppress the bitterness that still welled up within me when I thought of my family. Distantly, I was glad that Harleen was there, because I knew that if she weren't, I would have been drinking that bitterness away.

"I was a gymnast for a long time," she finally said after a while, returning my unspoken question about her past. "I was deadly serious about it, too; it wasn't a hobby for me, but a way of life." She laughed, but the sound was a little dark. "Sometimes, looking back, I can barely remember a time when I wasn't cartwheeling or jumping over the vault. I used to spend hours at the gym, thinking up new routines. It was amazing," a smile briefly flitted over her lips, "learning all the different things my body could do, the different ways I could contort or flip and how I could hone those skills. It was heady, too; up on the balance beam or the uneven bars you could twist and flip and defy gravity. For a while, I was addicted to that rush, especially on the uneven bars."

I cocked my head; that was so unlike the girl I thought I knew. "Why's that?"

"Up there, on the bars, it's like flying," she whispered reverently. "One minute, you're hanging on, bending this way and that, and the next minute you're soaring through the air. In that one moment you're free… free from everything."

I didn't like where this was suddenly going. "So what happened?" I asked, because there had to be an inevitability somewhere.

"I fell once," she answered, a certain despair entering her eyes. "Just once but, sometimes, that's all it takes. I was leaning a new dismount, but my spotter wasn't paying attention and I didn't do it quite right." She shuddered suddenly. "It was like spinning out of control, the world was rushing around me and I couldn't stop it; that wasn't flying, it was diving. I nearly landed on my head."

"Must have been terrifying," I offered. And I knew it had to have been—I'd seen enough of the acrobats lose their nerves, or get into accidents, to have an idea of what she had gone through.

"I never learned to do that dismount properly; as a matter of fact, I started to downright fear the bars entirely." She gave a bitter laugh. "Slowly that fear grew, until I was afraid to do almost anything; I'd just freeze up, terrified that I was going to do something wrong." For a moment, a fierce pain reflected in her eyes, but she quickly shut them and forced the feeling away. "I had to give up gymnastics in the end; I couldn't perform anymore. The very feats I had once reveled in learning filled me with despair; I sunk so far into depression that I rarely left the house those days. Of course, I had no siblings and my parents were rarely ever home, so for the first time I was truly alone, in a time when solitude was the last thing I needed." She shrugged. "I started clinging to my parents whenever they were around, letting them rule my life because, at least that way, it wouldn't be my fault if something went wrong."

"It wasn't your fault," I told her immediately, almost angrily. "Mistakes happen, Harleen—even people who know how to do a trick mess it up completely from time to time."

"That doesn't make the fear go away," she replied evenly. "When a mistake has no choice but to end in pain, that fear will always live inside you."

In a flash, I could see it, see the trail of the conversation bending in just such a way that I could use it to motivate her. "You're right, but that doesn't mean you can't continue to do something because of it. I live with The Fear that a simple waiver of my hand is going to hurt you, and while that's not a personal pain it still boils up my emotions—and _you_," I drew the word out, gesturing toward her, "live with The Fear that I'm going to make that mistake and you'll be forced to face the consequences. And yet the both of us still do the knife act every performance." I could see that this was making her uncomfortable, but she needed to hear it. "Just because it's an old hurt doesn't mean it can't be overcome."

She shook her head immediately. "I don't think—"

I held up a hand to cut her off. "You saw something in me worth saving, Harleen, and now I'm returning the favor because I've seen something more than worth saving in you," I said quietly. "You were exhilarated just now, when you were doing back flips for that little boy—I've never seen you so happy or carefree; it's like you were a different person entirely. And you're going to let that slip by you because of one mistake?" Snorting derisively, I shook my head. "I won't let you."

"Jack," she pleaded, but her voice failed her and nothing was said for a while. I could see the pain and despair etched in the lines of her face—it was obvious that she missed gymnastics, that it's absence from her life was a pain she lived with daily, but the fear was so great that she didn't know how to overcome it. After a few minutes had gone by, she cleared her throat and tried again, "Don't give me hope, Jack. I couldn't stand it if you made me want it anymore than I already do. Everyone around me keeps saying that I should get back in the saddle—that's why my parents sent me here in the first place—and I want to, but it's not that easy."

"I understand," I soothed. "There's a lot of emotional baggage that you need to deal with here, and I respect that. But let's make something clear: I'm not telling you that you _should_ start practicing again, I'm telling you that you _will_—and unlike all your other well-wishers, I'm going to help you do it." I had fast come to the decision that Harleen was best suited to her former lifestyle; gymnastics gave her a joy that nothing else could replicate—our act wasn't enough, she had to start working with the acrobats more.

**

* * *

Becoming** someone new is a difficult and painful process. Harleen was timid, but I knew that change was the only way to save her—she had to become that hellcat I'd glimpsed full-time if she were to have any hope of reclaiming her passion. But that meant I had to change too, become more forceful and aggressive in my dealings with her; there was no room for passivity in our lives anymore. I think we butted heads a lot in those early days because neither of us really knew _how_ to change but, after a while, we got the hang of it.

And that was when the curiosity began—we had set out to change one another, but we hadn't truly meant to become new people ourselves. From both of us emerged new figures, characters that we slipped on like masks and lived as for a time. Harleen unleashed her hellcat nature whenever she was intent on curbing my alcoholism, and that side of her became known as Harley Quinn. I let go of my apathy whenever it came time to encourage her to practice her gymnastics more, and that part of me became known as The Joker. They weren't names we had given to each other or had decided on ourselves—other members of the circus watched us in bafflement, and the monikers came from them.

It was easier to understand how I became known as The Joker, though it was cruel in a sense. I was well known for always having a deck of cards on me, so a card comparison was inevitable, I suppose. They began calling me The Joker because I was the useless one of the pair—the recovering alcoholic who could only encourage his friend rather than truly work with her as she reclaimed her own art.

Harley Quinn, however, was a name of circumstance. One of the acrobats had noticed that Harleen looked like a porcelain doll when she was in the clown-makeup, so he had started to call her dollface. And when it became known that Harleen and I were with each other almost constantly, dollface suddenly became Joker's Harlequin. From there, it was almost logical that she became Harley Quinn; it was both her nickname, and a shortening of her real name.

It wasn't always easy for us to cope with our new personas, however; at times it seemed as though they were both trying to overcome our innate natures. Sometimes The Joker came to me without thought, and sometimes I had to drag him screaming to the surface. Those times were painful, because with The Joker came a mess of thoughts and emotions, and if I had to force him out then it meant I wasn't ready to deal with that baggage. He did have one intensely surprising benefit, however—I found that through the eyes of The Joker, it was easier to deal with The Fear.

At the time, I didn't realize that The Joker was a part of The Fear, so deeply ingrained in it that he was only fueling the problem.

Under the mask of The Joker, chaos became like a religion to me. It started out simply enough—for Harley to move on and get past her fear, she had to embrace the unknown, the fact that she couldn't control what would happen and she would just have to accept it if she was to have any hope of healing. For a while, I managed to ignore that the unknown was the cause of my own Fear, but it wouldn't stay down for long. My mistake came in trying to embrace the philosophy that I had preached out to Harley—by embracing the chaos that had spawned The Fear for me, I created an adrenaline-fueled monster within myself. The Fear turned into a secret ecstasy, and a bigger problem than I could often cope with.

I wanted to turn back to the bottle.

* * *

Harleen had known Jack struggled and slipped a lot in those days, but she hadn't realized that it had been because of her. She had really tried her damnedest to be a haven for him, but all along she had only been adding more friction.

It was difficult to read this last passage—to see Jack's slow descent into the terror he'd become, and to know how she'd played a part in it. She had already known when and how he'd become known as The Joker, but she hadn't realized how quickly the mindset had come to him, how early on he'd already been falling apart. Even before he'd picked up the infamous moniker, he'd had thoughts like The Joker. As early as when they'd first started working together, Jack had been finding pleasure in chaos. She knew with absolute certainty that his desire hadn't been to hurt her or in the possibility that she could be hurt, but in the freedom that came from not knowing what would happen next.

Harleen had to admit that she hadn't always understood Jack's feelings, and she certainly didn't understand The Joker's philosophies, but this journal went a long way in explaining how one had transitioned into the other. But what had been the appeal? That was still something she couldn't wrap her mind around. Had Jack simply been predisposed to this way of thinking, or had it been a product of his past? Had it been the environment of the circus, or something he had learned to embrace it during his brief stretch in college?

They were uncomfortable questions that she had no way to answer without Jack's help.

**

* * *

Without** going into any horrific detail (or really any detail at all), let it be known that Harley and Joker's push and pull went on for close to two years before it finally paid off. She worked hard to tame her fear, and eventually got to the point where she was willing to perform once more—which was handy, because she was so innately talented that the management wanted to put her in nearly half a dozen acts. In no time at all, she began working the ropes, doing gravity-defying tricks on thin wires and hanging ropes. She was an instant success, which I think put her off at first and made it doubly hard to push down her fears, but as her fans and praises increased, so did her courage. Harley had gone from a timid mouse in a small act to a show-stopping cornerstone of the circus.

Which brings us up to the present, I suppose. Harley and I are thick as thieves now, rarely apart anymore than we have ever been. We still perform our knife-throwing act and we're still constantly pushing each other to change. I imagine that's how things will stay for quite some time, so the future of this journal is rather uncertain—maybe there's a further tale to tell, maybe there isn't, only time will let us know for sure.

* * *

A/N: There is another half to the story, already written, and I will have it posted tomorrow (most likely).

All my other notes and the full disclaimer is in the second half.

Please Review!

Short Disclaimer: I own nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Whatever Doesn't Kill You**

Part Two

**This** is random, but I suppose most of this journal will be from now on. It's just a little moment in time, but it stuck with me, so I'll write it down.

Harley and I have silently agreed that the best way to deal with pre-show nerves is to not think about it, so one of us often ends up in the other's trailer while we prepare for the coming performance. We've shared some pretty diverse conversations this way—talking about anything from politics and philosophy to exchanging silly jokes and teasing little ribs—and today was no different.

I was lounging in front of the lit mirror, my feet propped on the vanity table as I absently played with a deck of cards. Harley was to my side, fussing with her costume—it was skin-tight and green with copper-colored sequins, and I didn't think it suited her nearly as well as the red and black one, but she knew that already and it was her way of teasing me.

"You know," she said suddenly, "for as often as I see cards in your hands, I've never seen you play a single game with them. Why is that?"

I shrugged easily, continuing to shuffle the deck. "I've never been particularly fond of card games."

She frowned. "How can that be possible? You're always using cards in your act."

"You misunderstand me," a smile played about my lips. "I like _cards_, but not most of the games."

"Why's that?" She began fussing with her hair now, twisting it into two tight buns so that it wouldn't get in her way when she was performing.

I took my feet off the table. "There are four face cards, but you only play with three of them: the King, the Queen, and the Jack." As I listed each of them, I laid them on the able before me. "But what about the Joker?"

She smiled bemusedly. "What _about_ the Joker?"

"There are only three face cards for every suit," I indicated the cards before me, " which makes them obscure but not rare. There are only two Jokers in the entire deck," I held up my hand, the two Joker cards between my index and middle fingers, "which makes them _the_ rarest card. They used to be a trump card of the highest order, but these days Jokers are usually used either to replace missing cards from the deck or as a wild card."

She cocked her head to the side, meeting my eyes in the mirror. "Is that where the saying, 'Joker's wild' comes from?"

I nodded. "It is."

"You said you don't like playing _most_ card games," she pointed out, turning back to her preparations, "so what are the ones you do like?"

"Chase the Joker," I answered immediately, reshuffling my deck. "It's essentially Old Maid, except with Jokers instead of Aces. And War, I suppose, with Jokers as trumps."

"It's a pity there are only two of them per deck," she commented, smiling as she began to apply her makeup—which was now less clownish and more smoldering since her routines had changed.

"No, Harley," I shook my head. "That's the beauty of them."

**

* * *

It** was easy to get caught up in life at the circus, to forget how things had progressed. That thought struck me once, as I watched Harley perform. To the crowd, her motions looked effortless, almost ethereal, but from the side-ring I could see her muscles working and the sweat building over her. She made everything look so easy, from the Spanish Web to a back flip on the tight-rope, but I knew the struggle that had gone into learning and perfecting each trick, I knew the pain that each one had caused her. Harley was a brave woman who was constantly pushing forward, always looking for something bigger and better no matter how much it scared her, and sometimes it was easy to forget that she hadn't always been that way.

Harleen had come to me as a timid little teenager, unsure of herself and everyone around her—except me. From the very first, her and I had connected, and through that relationship we managed to uncover the true woman in her. She still had her fears, they would always be a part of her, but the hellcat in her—Harley—was a woman of action and unwavering bravery. Harley Quinn and Harleen were both the same woman, and yet two very different people at once, and I often wondered if it would be possible for them to coexist indefinitely or if one of them would eventually have to take over.

That thought spins me in a different direction, to my own plight. I'm like a coin as well: Jack on one side, The Joker on the other—and I know which side is facing up less and less as the days go by. I find my thoughts getting muddled, slipping into irregular patterns that are unfamiliar and yet somehow fitting. At times, it frightens me, and at others… See, the problem is that I'm not frightened enough; there are parts of The Joker that feel like home. I often worry that I'm getting used to the temporary bursts of strangeness, but The Joker can make the world easier to deal with, in lieu of alcohol.

I compared The Joker to a mask earlier, but it probably would have been better to say he was a mindset—he wasn't (isn't) something that I just slip on that allows me to act out a part. When I become him, I can feel my thoughts changing—

* * *

The entry broke off abruptly there, but Harleen knew what Jack had been trying to say. In some ways, she had noticed his transition into The Joker, had recognized that there were times when Jack didn't act very much like himself at all. She hadn't been worried about it at the time because she'd known they were both going through periods of upheaval but, with the clarity of hindsight, she knew she should have been more concerned about his state of mind.

The phone rang again, a shrill wail that prompted her to turn off the ringer—she didn't need pity today.

Harleen turned back to the journal with a contemplative eye, her thoughts returning to what Jack hadn't been able to put into words. Looking back, it was easy to pin down the times when he had started to become The Joker. She had thought of him as a nuisance at first, a pushy, aggressive bully who wanted nothing more than to pester her about overcoming her fears—and that's really all he had been until later, until closer to the end when it had started to become obvious that something was wrong with Jack, but she'd been too far gone herself by then to notice.

Jack had been serious, a little quiet, and very sympathetic, whereas The Joker was a bit of a bastard who loved nothing more than to make people uncomfortable. One of the things that had always frustrated her about The Joker was his unerring response of, "Why not?" Nothing had been out of bounds for that man; he'd had no limits and he'd seen no reason for other people to have them either. Whenever she had frozen up while learning a trick and had dared to utter the words, "I can't," he had always returned with, "Why not?" and had listened to her answers with the most insufferably mocking air she had ever seen. The Joker didn't stop to think about if something were wise, healthy, or even ultimately possible—he simply acted, if for no other reason than because he could. It had been frustrating to work with him, but she'd seen the necessity of it; she had needed his devil-may-care attitude to motivate her, but she hadn't realized how much that side of Jack hadn't been an act.

What truly scared Harleen, though, was that the journal had already made allusions to that fact that The Joker was becoming a stronger presence in him, almost as if the split personality was solidifying and becoming self-aware. As she had watched the news over the past months she had often wondered when it was that she'd first seen that lazy look in his eyes or that graceless shrug of his shoulders—when was it that The Joker had gone from annoying mentor to appalling psychopath?

**

* * *

I** think I lose another little part of myself every time I have to do the knife-throwing act, and it leaves me wondering how long it will be before there's nothing left of me. Without the luxury of alcohol, I have no way to buffer these thoughts or dim the memories of my sick pleasure, so I offer them up to The Joker instead.

I know that's the absolute worst thing I could be doing. I'm just feeding the monster—looping the pain and uncertainty back in on itself, until it magnifies my stress and seemingly glorifies the pleasure I know I shouldn't be finding in the dangerous performance. When I throw a knife at Harley, a part of me wonders, "Will it hit her?" and a different part of me purrs at the knowledge that I can't answer that question. The Joker loves my uncertainty, my lack of control once things have been set into motion. And the more of myself I give up to him, the more I find him guiding my actions, steering me toward recklessness.

I had promised myself from the first moment I knew I'd be working with Harleen that I would do everything possible to make sure she was never hurt, but I begin to wonder now, in the face of The Joker, if she's really safe at all.

**

* * *

I** have long been of the opinion that only certain battles are worth fighting, but I think it's time to scrap that idea. Why? Markel Dientz.

It's so simple that it's idiotic, and I think you know it, Markel. You're making a war out of nothing—I don't like you and you don't like me, but that doesn't mean we have to resort to blows, does it?

I suppose it does, because you fired the first shot with unerring accuracy. You knew exactly where to hit to cause me the most pain, and I can't ignore that. Or, rather, I _won't_ ignore that. I wouldn't have cared if you'd chosen to attack me—that might have actually been interesting—but you've proven to be a bastard. You went after the woman.

What you choose to do behind closed doors is your own damn business; I really couldn't care less. So why did you choose to come bragging to me about it? _I_ know you hate me, _you_ know you hate me, so I can only assume that your idiotic chest-pounding was just a show meant to get under my skin.

Well, it worked. Consider the battle begun. I'm going to crush you, Markel, with all the brutality and dispassion I can manage—you really should have known better than to fuck with my Harley Quinn.

* * *

This was downright chilling. Harleen remembered Markel Dientz—he'd been one of her fellow acrobats, a fit and charming man, just slightly older than her. He hadn't been her first lover at the circus, but he'd been her last, and she'd never understood why until just now. She had never made a habit of sleeping around, never garnered a reputation for being a slut—when Harleen took a lover it was exclusive, and it was serious. For a while, she'd had no end to hopeful admirers, but one day it was as though a switch had been flipped: she'd started seeing Markel and then three days later people had barely even wanted to be her friend, including her lover. At first, she'd thought it was because of Markel—but he was an old hat at the circus and had no enemies, although it was fairly well known that he didn't get along with Jack. But Markel had left her too and, as the days progressed, it seemed as though men avoided her more and more.

Harleen had accepted the oddity gracefully, despite her confusion, knowing they had all just been replacements for Jack anyway. She had been too much of a coward to approach him though, too afraid of messing up their easy-going friendship. And while she had known that Jack had always wanted more from her, she hadn't realized how possessive he had become of her.

Or, rather, how possessive The Joker had become of her—there was no mistaking who had written that last journal entry; it was much too confrontational to have been Jack. And there was certainly no mistaking that The Joker had done something to Markel, something that had been guaranteed to scare him and all the other men away. But what? She'd never seen any physical evidence of fighting on either man, so how had The Joker terrorized her erstwhile lover? It was a chilling question, only made palatable by the fact that she knew The Joker hadn't yet worked himself up to committing murder at that point.

**

* * *

I** can be subtle when the mood strikes me, and I can be terrifying when I put my mind to it. But Markel danced into trouble all on his own and then presented me with the perfect opportunity to send out a clear warning.

I was juggling knives for the hell of it—I had some downtime and there wasn't much else to do. My peace was short lived though, because the bastard cornered me again and started bragging about the wonders of Harley's bed. I won't even repeat any of what he said; it was too crude and disrespectful to Harley.

Markel wanted some kind of a rise out of me, and for a while I tried not to react, but the rage was building in me. I could accept that Harley had a lover who wasn't me—that was her choice and her right—but I would not accept that it was someone who was such an asshole.

He turned to leave after some time, disappointed that I hadn't indulged him. The moment his back was to me, I let myself go—one of my knives sailed through the air, singing a sweet song as it imbedded itself into doorframe beside Markel's head.

He stared at the quivering blade, his throat working reflexively.

"Sorry," I said, standing up and moving to retrieve the knife, "must have slipped." I withdrew the knife, but let it hover between the two of us, an ominous presence. "You can't imagine how hard it is to control these things sometimes," I continued warningly.

I was worried about the glaze in Markel's eyes as he left, but he understood me just fine—he stopped bragging. The fact that he stopped seeing Harley entirely and quietly warned some of the other men that, "Jack's losing his mind," was just a bonus.

**

* * *

Fuck** all happened today, or really any day this week and, here's a guess, I think the trend will continue on for several days to come. I'm beginning to have doubts about this whole journal thing, Harley.

**

* * *

She** was right though, and that kills me: she's _always_ right. Even if I say nothing important in this stupid book, it still helps me in the fact that I at least have something to pour my thoughts out to.

For such a broken little girl, Harley sure seems to have all the answers to life's problems.

No, I didn't mean that. Harley isn't broken or damaged or any of that other garbage she's constantly trying to put herself down with—I'm only saying it because she keeps bringing it back up. We were doing so good for such a long time, and now I can't figure out what went wrong. Her performances are as spectacular as ever, but outside of them it's suddenly like she's that timid nineteen-year-old all over again; she's pulling back into her shell and I don't know how to stop her, or why she's even doing it.

At times like this, my throat itches for the burn of whiskey, and I think that today I'll lose that fight against the bottle because the sad truth is that when her resolve gets shaken, so does mine.

**

* * *

In** hindsight, it's almost like Harley's foul attitude was some kind of premonition. Maybe we both should have taken it as a sign that she needed to step back for a night or two.

There's no easy way to recount this…

The performance tonight started out like any other—it was completely identical to all the other shows we'd put on over the week.

Until the tight rope act.

I've never been afraid for Harley's safety while she performs, there was never any need. She was a talented young woman, and there were precautions put into place, like a safety-wire and a net. So what happened tonight was just…

Words fail me. Life went from normal, almost downright boring, to pure horror faster than anyone could comprehend.

Harley was halfway through her act when it happened. Just as she was straightening out of a back flip, one of the stage lights broke partially loose of its scaffolding to swing around in wide and uncertain arcs. Her scream pierced through the din of the circus, echoing around the enormous tent as the light hit her head from the side and sent her plummeting off the tight rope. My heart stopped as I watched her, but my body was already racing toward the net.

But Harley didn't land in the net; the stage light's blow had sent her just off course enough to bounce off the side of the net and into the support rigging. She never reached the ground—her safety-wire prevented her from going that far down—and so she hung like a limp doll in a nest of conflicting wires.

This image is burned into my mind, and I can't get rid of it. The support rigging of the net was tied to one of the main tent pillars, and the thick, rough cables bent and connected at all angles. In the middle of the mess was Harley—a marionette without her strings. She was limp and pale, hanging unevenly as her arms and legs had all caught on different wires. Her hair had come free in her fall, and it curled about her head in a blonde cloud, the ends of it stained red where it had touched her face. Harley was bleeding—she'd been cut and scraped in many places, and there were trickles of blood running down her arms and legs. It was nothing compared to her face though; blood was pouring from somewhere around her cheeks, running down her chin and throat and soaking into the front of her costume.

Time stood still as the patrons began to scream and the management rushed to contain the situation—someone must have called the paramedics because an ambulance arrived a little while later, but I didn't wait for them. Staring up at Harley—at the poor, trapped and broken hellcat—I knew I couldn't let her go; someone had to save the girl, and it was going to be me. The wires bit into my hands, but they were superficial cuts and I would ignore them for her; in fact, I ignored everything for her, all the noises and sights exploding around me, absolutely everything except for the fear that she might be dead. Even when I finally had her in my arms and back on the ground and I knew for a fact that she was still breathing, my panic didn't subside.

Faster than I was capable of comprehending at the time, I was surrounded by people, all of them poking and prodding and shouting and I couldn't understand a damn thing that was happening other than the fact that someone was trying to take my Harley away.

It turned out to be the paramedics, and when that was finally communicated to me I relinquished her. They chastised me later for moving her, but what else could I have done? I couldn't have left her stuck in the rigging, bleeding out or possibly dead.

Watching Harley be put on a stretcher, looking so fragile and brutalized, was like a physical blow. Something within me was pulled tight as she was taken away, loaded into the back of the ambulance and driven off to the hospital. I watched the flashing lights fade off into the night, standing silently as sympathetic hands clasped my shoulders.

What the hell had I witnessed? Even now, hours later, no one has been able to piece it together completely. So here I am, sitting in a hospital ward and scribbling furiously away in this journal because it's the only thing keeping me sane while I wait for her to come out of surgery. I'm not alone, her family and a few other concerned coworkers are here as well, but I think I'm the only one who's about to have some kind of nervous breakdown.

**

* * *

I** hate hospitals—they've got too many rules and regulations that serve no purpose other than to annoy and frustrate everyone involved.

So what happened? Well, it was just after midnight when the doctor finally came out to talk to us. Tempers and fears were running high, but we all faced his news with whatever hopes we could.

"She lost a lot of blood, but she was lucky—none of her injuries were life threatening." The doctor's tone was soothing and professional, but there was a dark undertone that said he wasn't done talking. "However, the lacerations and burns to her face were severe; we did what we could to close everything up and stop the bleeding, but the disfigurement may be permanent."

Her mother—a pretty blonde woman who bore a striking resemblance to Harley—looked aghast at the idea, and I hated her in that moment for being more concerned about how her daughter looked than the simple fact that she was _alive_. As far as I was concerned, a miracle had happened.

"You could look into skin-grafts, but there's only so much that cosmetic surgery can do, Mrs. Quinzel," the doctor replied quietly, no hint of personal emotion in his voice, "and she'll have to be awake to make that decision."

Her father stepped forward; he was a stoic man in his sixties, but he finally seemed concerned about the situation. "She still hasn't woken up?"

"She's not in a coma," the doctor assured. "She did wake up briefly, before the surgery, but we had to anaesthetize her, and she has yet to fully recover from that." With his soothing act more or less complete, the doctor dropped his mellow tone and dove into strict authority. "Right now, the best thing for her is as little stress or stimulation as possible—if you must visit, I advise you do it one at a time, and family only for now. We don't know her state of mind at the moment, so we're trying to minimize exposure to anything that might upset her."

I could have accepted that—I would have, in fact, and I was prepared to spend the next day or two waiting for her—if that had been what she actually wanted. But not ten minutes later, she was opening her eyes and screaming for me. At the time, I didn't understand it; granted, the only one of her blood relatives that seemed like a decent person was Mr. Charmich, her Uncle and the circus manager, but they were still her _family_. Why would she want to see me over them? I was important to her, I knew that much, but I hadn't realized that I was more important than her own parents. But whether I understood it or not, I knew one thing: if Harley had asked, then I would oblige.

So, of course, the gracious and efficient staff at Gotham General had to intervene. "Family only," they maintained, despite the fact that she was apparently throwing some kind of fit the longer I wasn't in that room. They wanted her relaxed and resting, but refused to grant her the one request that might have actually brought her some kind of peace.

Mr. Charmich protested on my behalf, saying that I was _like_ family to the girl, but her parents remained silent and cold. I think they came to hate me in that moment, just as I had already come to hate them. Not that I blamed them for it: we were all fighting for the attention of the same amazing woman. But the difference was that they had already blown their chance, and Harley was the center of my world now, which made her my responsibility in some sense.

I was about a minute away from just walking into Harley's room whether I had been given permission or not—at that point you could hear her screaming from halfway down the ward—when I was politely but forcefully told to go home.

"Don't go far, Jack," Mr. Charmich advised, clasping my shoulder as I turned to go. "She's not going to stop until she's seen you; they'll have to give in sooner or later. I'll call your cell phone when they do, so stay close."

I always liked Mr. Charmich; he was a practical sort of man and it was a pity that he didn't have complete control of the circus.

He was right, too, although it took everyone much longer to break than I would have expected. I wasn't admitted into Harley's room until nearly five in the morning. And it wasn't any sort of great victory because, while I wanted desperately to see her, I was still afraid of what I might be walking in to. As it turned out, my fears were well founded.

Harley looked tiny on the utilitarian hospital bed. She was riddled with bandages and gauze-wraps, her pale face almost completely covered. An IV trailed from one arm and a heart monitor beeped steadily in the background. But all of that faded away as her blue eyes locked on me—they were glazed and ringed in bruises, but relieved to see me.

"They wanted to sedate me," she said, her voice horse and raspy.

I almost laughed. "Maybe you shouldn't have screamed so much."

An awkward paused stretched out between us then, with nothing to mark the time other than the rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor.

"Jack," she finally pleaded after several moments, "what happened?"

My heart broke at the question—didn't she remember? "We're not entirely sure, sweetheart," I replied as I sat down on the edge of her bed and carefully took one of her hands into my own. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"I was on the tight rope," she said uncertainly. "Then," Harley struggled, her mouth moving soundlessly as the words slipped by her. "Just pain," she finally concluded.

I sighed heavily, gently running my thumb over her fingers—more to comfort myself than her. "One of the lights came loose from its scaffolding," I replied carefully. "It swung in an arc and hit you from the side."

Her free hand rose up to touch the bandages on her right cheek, the light of remembrance in her eyes.

"You fell," I continued, feeling a little sick, "but the safety-wire and the net didn't save you like they were supposed to. You bounced off the side of the net and ended up in the rigging. Something must have been wrong with your safety-wire; you shouldn't have been able to get that far."

Her had moved to her left cheek, a silent question I wasn't sure how to answer.

"I don't know," I said after a moment. "It could have been rope-burn from the net or a cut from one of the rigging cables. Everything happened so fast, Harley, it was hard to see."

"The doctor said the cuts didn't go entirely through my cheeks," she murmured, her grip tightening on my hand, "but they might scar very badly anyway." Harleen paused, her breathing slow and uneven. "Does that bother you?"

It was her mother; I knew it. The woman had probably come in and spent more time worrying about the bandages than her own daughter's wellbeing. And, unsurprisingly, those thoughts had been pounded into Harleen's fragile state of mind. She should have known that I would never turn away from her like that, but the circumstances made her doubtful enough to ask. That simple question filled me with so much impotent rage that I was choking on it.

In a flash, The Joker was there—larger than life and unstoppable, claiming a permanent part of me.

**

* * *

Her** recovery took several long, hellish weeks, over which I became increasingly manic without her presence. I visited her every day, but outside of her company I turned back to the bottle.

Alcohol has never tasted so sweet or brought such fiery clarity before.

The world is fucked—society has set up all these rules meant to help things run smoother and safer, but in the end they won't save you. There had been solid contingencies in place to prevent an accident like Harley's, but it had still happened anyway and now, through no fault of her own, she's being forced to suffer the consequences. It's madness. What's the point in all that planning, in all those rules, if they don't make a bit of a difference when everything is said and done? All it takes is for one thing to go wrong, and the entire system collapses.

And in the end, it just proves that I've been right all along—it _is_ better to savor that sweet moment of chaos. You never know which rules are going to help you, if any do at all, so why put your faith in them? At least anarchy has never flown itself under a white flag of innocence—it promises you nothing, which makes it honest and fair.

Harley wants to come back to the circus, which I find surprising—an accident like that is enough to end a career. From visiting her, I know that in many ways she has pulled back into being Harleen, but this might be a step in the right direction.

**

* * *

Or** it might be an unmitigated disaster.

People crowded her at first—supposed friends and well-wishers—but they really only came to see the scars. And I won't lie, they aren't pretty: one scar stretches across her cheek and goes almost to her ear, while the other curls from the corner of lips and ends just under her eye. But that doesn't mean she has to be an attraction to them; she isn't a freak show that they can gawk at. Not so long ago, she was everyone's sweetheart, and I find it sickening that they've all decided to forget that.

Her name has turned into a whispered joke around the circus—Harley Quinn, the clown that never stops smiling. She has enough trouble to face without people being assholes, but it seems like the entire world is suddenly against her. All the girl wants to do is get back into the saddle, to prove that no matter how many accidents she has to suffer through she will not be beaten down—but no one will let her. Her parents want her to quit and move back in with them, her fellow acrobats are suddenly treating her like a leper, and the management (save her Uncle) is turning a blind eye to the blatant discrimination she's facing.

And me, useless fucking Jack, can't do a damn thing to help her.

**

* * *

Markel** Dientz, the filthy little prick, suggested today that Harley's new appearance might be better suited to _just_ the knife-throwing act. Disfigurement automatically disqualifies her from working with the acrobats? And it's all just because they no longer consider her pretty.

But she's still beautiful to me, and she always will be—and if the only thing I can do for her in this whole mess is to keep the knife act going then that's what I'll do.

Even if it kills me.

* * *

His journal entries were becoming shorter and more fragmented, Harleen noticed. Most of his entries had been Jack telling a story, but now his thoughts were coming out at random. Was it the alcohol he had fallen back into, or was it The Joker taking him over?

**

* * *

She** wants to give up, to step down from the ropes, and I can't think of anything that would piss me off more at the moment. This isn't my Harley—it's Harleen, and I can't stand the thought of her.

"Civility is a mask, Harleen," I try to persuade her. "Under their skin, everyone's just a wild animal waiting to be unleashed. They felt sorry for you yesterday, but today you're nothing more than a joke to them. Society is an illusion, a game that they can play when it's convenient."

She shakes her head. "What do you want me to do, Jack? I mean, maybe they're right; maybe it is time for me retire from the flashier performances."

"Don't play by their rules," I snap, my temper flaring for a moment. "You've got better chances of survival if you take matters into your own hands."

"How?" she asks.

But I can't answer that question—it isn't my choice to make.

**

* * *

She's** withdrawing from everything, and the harder I try to motivate her, the further she slips away from me. I don't even know how to reach her anymore, and she isn't listening to me—she's quitting the acrobatics entirely, she won't even tumble anymore. Harleen is doing less _now_ than when she first arrived at the circus.

And as if that weren't bad enough, people are giving her hell over the knife-throwing act as well. All she has to do is stand there and not get hit, but somehow the scars are a clear signal to everyone that she can't do even that.

The audience doesn't give a fuck; most of them can't even tell she's injured because the face paint covers it up. But the performers are howling for her to be replaced, and she just smiles her way through the whole damn ordeal, pretending that it's not killing her on the inside.

"It's alright, really." Harleen pulls out some greasepaint and cakes a generous helping of white around her face. "There, you can barely see it when I'm covered like this. See? It's fine."

No, it isn't fine—she shouldn't have to hide her face, she shouldn't have to hide her scars. _It wasn't her fault, why has everyone forgotten that?_ "No matter how you cover it up, you'll always know it's there, Harl," I tell her. "And, no matter what you do, no matter how much you prove yourself to them, you'll always know that they thought of you as a freak, that they wanted to replace you."

"It's a circus, Jack," she sighs in frustration. "Everyone wants to be at the top, to be in front of the crowd—you can't blame them for wanting me gone."

"Yes, I can," I answer immediately.

Her eyes soften, and a sad smile plays about her twisted lips. "You take things too hard, sweetheart. You're a clown," she puts her fingers to either side of my mouth and forces my lips into a smile. "Why so serious, Jack?"

* * *

"**Think** of it this way, Jack: you don't have to worry about hitting her anymore. It's not like a little slip's gonna make much of a difference now."

I don't even know who the hell said that, but Harleen heard it and now she's started wearing a mask during our act—like she's the fucking Phantom of the Opera or something.

Don't hide from me, sweetheart. Don't you _dare_ pull away from me!

**

* * *

Why** so serious? That's a damn good question, Harleen—thanks for pointing it out.

**

* * *

Twisted** little Anna

Wanted somebody else's place

But she said the wrong thing to The Joker

And now she's locked up in a case.

Why so serious, little Anna? I thought you _wanted_ to play with The Joker.

* * *

Harleen shivered. If the events that had unfolded at Gotham City's circus could be likened to a three act tragic play, then it was clear that Anna had been act two.

Anna Finkle had always rubbed Harleen the wrong way—she was dark and voluptuous, had a penchant for using and abusing men, and she had slowly been working her way through the male stock at the circus. They hadn't crossed paths a lot, but they had shared a notable animosity.

And then, one day, Anna had just been gone, never to be seen again. Of course, people were coming and going all the time at the circus, so no one had batted a lash, but Harleen had always found it a little strange. Anna had been ambitious, more than willing to use her skills both in and out of the sheets in order to make her way to the top, so her disappearance had never made much sense and Harleen had always wondered what had happened.

Now she knew.

**

* * *

Gone**. Barely a tip of the hat to me, her trailer empty, her act already recast. _Harley Quinn_ is gone in every sense of the word.

She gave everything she had to this circus, sometimes more than she could spare, and all it did was chew her up and spit her out, beat her down until she was too broken to stand back up. Where are the rules that are supposed to save her, or the authority that's meant to protect her?

I get it now—to live within the frame of the social norm is insanity. To live freely, to live happily, you have to stay ahead of the system. It isn't a matter of living by your own rules—they'll catch you at that game—it's a matter of living without them entirely.

So what are my rules? Never show up drunk to a practice or a performance, and never take pleasure from the fact that someone might get hurt; I think it's time to break those rules.

My new 'assistant' makes the decision pretty damn easy, too. She had howled and moaned for Harleen's job for ages, but now that she's part of the knife-throwing act, she doesn't actually give a damn. The twit barely shows up for practice. "I've got it down," she tells me, "there's no need to practice."

Yes, darling, there is, because this Joker doesn't think you know the act so well—in fact, tonight I'll prove it.

* * *

The next page was blank, and it gave Harleen pause. She knew what had happened, of course; she hadn't been there, but some friends had stepped forward to tell her the story. It was the finally act of their tragedy: the night that Jack had truly become The Joker that Gotham knew and feared.

With shaking hands, she pulled out the recording—when she'd left the circus she'd still had a few friends, and they had been kind enough to tell the whole story to a camera, so that she could hear what had happened in privacy. Or maybe they had been too scared to tell her face-to-face; it didn't really matter.

As she set the tape up, she couldn't help but remember how she'd felt all those months ago. The newspapers had run the story the very next morning, and Harleen had mourned for the dead and for the circus—she knew this wasn't an accident that it would recover from. But the paper hadn't named any names—it had only said that several people had died, the main tent had sustained heavy fire-damage, and an unknown member of the circus had perpetrated at least one double homicide. The ambiguity of the articles had frightened her; she needed those details. She had spent the rest of the day in a whirlwind of fright, desperately trying to reach Jack by phone, but he hadn't answered so she had assumed the worst. It wasn't until nearly a week later that the tape found its way to her apartment, explaining everything that the papers didn't know.

Harleen sat back down at the couch as her television screen filled with the image of two men: Philip Straulss and Rudy Glassinch. Philip was a fair-colored man, but he was layered with muscles from his work as one of the set and props handlers. Rudy was Philip's opposite: dark and wiry, but what he lacked in strength he made up for in speed.

"This is going to be hard for you to hear, Harleen," Rudy began, a haunted look in his eyes. "It will be hard for us to say too, so we all just have to try our best here." He paused and ran a hand through his short hair. "By now, you've probably heard all the reports about what happened at the circus—but no one is telling the right story, Harleen; no one has _got_ the right story other than us, and we think you have a right to know. Or maybe, you _need_ to know, for your own safety."

Philip shifted uncomfortably. "It was raining on the night of that last performance; coming down by the bucket, if I recall." He shifted again, then sighed—this was obviously difficult for him. "Wasn't anything unusual, at first." He shrugged. "Jack showed up for the performance in a mask, but we all just assumed it was his quiet way of protesting how you'd been run out." Philip frowned, a far away look entering his eyes. "He was kinda jittery though, bursting at the seams with energy. But you know how things are: no one at the circus questioned any of it once he said he was good to perform."

"The act was nothing special," Rudy picked up the thread of the story, "they performed the first two rounds without a hitch, but then it came time for the near-misses. Jack was hitting close that night, and we could all see Lisa getting nervous, but we figured it was just because she was new to the act." His voice became soft and low, but it didn't make what was to follow any easier to digest. "He threw left and she feinted right, then she started dodging the other way since it was routine, but Jack threw left again." Rudy swallowed thickly and closed his eyes. "The blade sank into her throat, straight through her neck and into the board behind her."

Harleen remembered crying the first time she'd heard this—crying so hard that she'd had to pause the tape. It still brought tears to her eyes, but they were more angry than sad now. She wanted to rage at Jack—what had he been thinking, why had he done it?

"Everyone froze," Philip whispered, his voice sounding reedy over the recording. "The patrons couldn't believe what they were seeing, and we all thought that Jack had forgotten the routine and was panicking now." He shook his head. "But he just lurched forward, grabbed one of the fire-breather's torches, hurled it into the crowd, and walked out."

Rudy cringed, his eyes becoming glassy, but he continued the story. "The fire consumed the tent in the blink of an eye. People were running this way and that, not sure which way was out or which member of the circus it was safe to be near. There were children crying, mothers shouting, it was all just a horrible ruckus of pain and bewilderment." He shook his head as he remembered, his throat working convulsively as though he were going to be sick. A moment went by, then two, but Rudy pulled himself together and continued. "A group of us rushed after Jack, wanting to get answers or hoping to hold him until the police got there. But he didn't go far, just stood in the rain, laughing as he watched the circus burn." He shivered, fear in his eyes, "I'll never forget that laugh—it was chilling to the core."

Philip took over once more. "He'd kept his mask on through the whole of the disaster, but he removed it then. For a minute, it was just Jack, but then his makeup started to run from the rain, and that was when we could see what he'd done. The scars were terrible, Harley, and I mean no disrespect to you by saying it, but when we saw them we all knew he'd come for revenge that night, come looking for a way to call in the debt he thought you were owed." There was a sadness in Philip's pale eyes—the sadness of a man who had witness a tragedy that couldn't be understood. "I remember, as I watched him, that I couldn't help but think it was lucky you weren't there, that it was a good thing you wouldn't have to see first hand what your Jack had been turned into."

At the time, Harleen had almost been thankful that Philip had said that but now, months later, she thought it was naïve of him. If she had been there, Jack wouldn't have flown off the handle; if she had just stayed at the circus like he had asked her to, then Jack might never have completely succumbed to The Joker.

"The three of us jumped him after a moment," Rudy recovered enough to say, "but he was stronger than any of us were anticipating and he was still armed with one of the knives from the act. Danny—I don't think you knew him, but he was a good kid, God rest his soul—went down pretty quick." He choked again, sickness and pain etched across his expressive face, but he carried on. "Philip and I took some wounds to the chest and arms, and Jack… Jack just seemed to be enjoying himself. It was inhuman; the harder we hit him, the more he'd laugh, and his energy level was just something else. He turned the tables on us in no time at all, getting the two of us to our knees like it was the easiest thing he'd done all night." Rudy paused, confusion replacing everything else. "For a moment he stared at us, then he shook his head and just walked away, slipping into the stampeding crowd before the cops could even get there."

It was Philip's turn to look sick now. "We gave the police the run-around when they asked everyone questions. No one said it out loud, but I think we were all afraid that giving up Jack's name would just make us next on his list." He shifted for the third time, no position comfortable enough to soften the story. "When the police asked, we told them what happened, but we all pretended we had no idea who had been behind the mask. The cops didn't really think twice about it—Jack wasn't the only member missing that night and, well let's face it, Gotham's Finest doesn't exactly have the best record when it comes to investigating homicide cases."

Harleen tuned the tape out, her thoughts turning inward. The Joker had started appearing in the news shortly thereafter in one terrible, heartbreaking report after another. But the news never mentioned who he was, in fact they made a point of saying they didn't know—but there were people out there who did. An entire circus had suspicions, at least three people knew for sure, and yet no one had come forward or given the police the proper details of Jack's story. Why? Were they _really_ all that afraid that he would come after them for their betrayals?

The sad truth was that, yes, they were. Just like Philip had said, every last one of them was waiting for The Joker to show up at the door one night, ready to call in their debts. No one had given the police the full story on Lisa's or Danny's murders—they'd all known it was Jack, but none of them had dared to mention his name.

"Harleen," the tape called her back. Philip was alone on the screen now, looking scared and concerned. "I know you—I know you've probably been in a panic all week over Jack, wondering if he made it out of the circus alive—but this isn't a problem you can handle. Don't go looking for him; he isn't the man you were friends with anymore, and I don't think he wants to be saved this time. For your own safety, keep your head down and don't go looking for trouble." The recording cut to black, automatically rewinding as it reached the end of the tape. The familiar whirl and click of her VCR did nothing to distract Harleen.

She had followed Philip's advice, although a lot of it had had to do with her depression rather than fear of Jack. That fear had grown over time though; with each new report on television, with each new layer of insanity she saw wrapping around The Joker, her nerves would jump and increase. And she knew it would only get worse now that she'd read the journal, now that she knew the advent of The Joker had been entirely her fault. She'd always suspected it, of course—it was kind of hard not to when she saw the mirror of her scars on his face—but now she knew beyond any doubt. Did he blame her for it, though? And if he did, was sending her the journal his way of telling her that it was time she paid her dues?

Harleen turned back to the leather-bound book, but there were no clues to be had. The remainder of the journal was blank, except for a scribbled message on the very last page: _Check your voicemail_.

She moved to her phone with dread. Harleen knew she had been shutting herself away from the world at large; she only left her apartment when it was necessary or unavoidable, and she sometimes went weeks without answering her phone. She'd been in one of those phases now, and her machine had nearly two-dozen messages waiting for her. Most of them were pleads and bargains from friends and family, hoping to draw her out of her shell—but there was one, toward the beginning of the set, that stood out.

"Let's conduct an experiment," The Joker's voice filled her apartment, setting her on edge. It was like hearing the voice of a ghost—although she knew it wasn't really Jack; Jack's voice had been sweet and deep, The Joker's was just nasal and piercing.

"By now, you've probably read the journal," he continued. "Jack wanted you to have it if anything happened to him, and since he's just as dead as my Harley Quinn, I figured, 'Why not?' But therein lays the heart of this experiment: is my Harley really dead?" He chuckled. "The journal was just the beginning, a way to remind you that there are always two Jokers to every deck, sweetheart, and I seem to be missing my other half. Did you remember what it felt like to be fearless, to be Harley Quinn, as you flipped through those pages? If she's still in there somewhere, if you can still feel that rush of joy in the face of danger, then maybe we should get together sometime and play. So I suppose my question is: are you still brave enough to be anyone other than Harleen?" He paused. "But if you'd rather not join the game, then I guess this is goodbye." The Joker began to laugh, an eerie, shrill sound that had her shivering. "At least until the next time we cross paths, anyway."

The machine switched over to the next message, but Harleen was no longer listening. She knew that The Joker wouldn't purposefully come after her, but as long as she remained in Gotham there was always the chance that they would bump into one another, and what then? He wouldn't pursue her, but that didn't mean he wasn't above taking advantage of a situation that she happened to be in. Former friend and love interest today, alluring hostage tomorrow. Gotham wasn't safe for someone like her—she didn't have the courage to stay.

But Harleen didn't have the courage to leave, either.

* * *

A/N: I initially started Whatever Doesn't Kill You about a year ago, during the time I was writing Broken Boy Soldier, but it took a while for the heart of this story to really develop, so it fell to the side for a bit. There will be a sequel (Simply Makes You Stranger), but I don't know when that will be out, seeing as I haven't written it yet. For some reason, I have to write my Joker stories completely, from start to finish, before I can post them.

This story is really something of an experiment for me. First, I'm writing primarily from The Joker's point of view, which I've been very hesitant to do up until this point. (I don't think I can do him justice, but my friend very aptly pointed out that if I told the entire story through Harley's eyes I'd be too tempted to focus on her as the main character, which is true.) Second, this story, or at least part of it, is being written in first person narration, which I have not attempted to do since I was still very wet behind the ears. Unfortunately, it was necessary, logistically speaking, so if it doesn't float your boat, I apologize.

I'm a little divided on this tale, personally. I really liked the fact that we never learned anything about who The Joker was or had been; that added bit of mystery worked really well for his character. So, from the very beginning, I've been writing a story that I don't think needs to be told, which is kind of a mark against me. But, at the same time, I'm interested in the idea that maybe Harley Quinn created The Joker, rather than the other way around.

I feel that I need to tip my hat to Mirror Mask—because that's where most of my circus reference comes from—and to The Prestige—because I loved the dueling journals and, while I don't have that same element in my own story, I am sort of trying that style of narration.

Also, much kudos to the same friend who always helps me out with all things Batman or Joker related: Kratos Hates Tomatoes (formerly Metanaito-sama).

Disclaimer: I own a plethora of side-characters, but Harley, Gotham, and The Joker belong to DC Comics and Warner Bros.


End file.
